


Computers: Can't Live Without Them

by Willa Shakespeare (AnonEhouse)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Computers behaving badly, Crack, Gen, Humor, Innuendo, Mature for mature humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:38:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Willa%20Shakespeare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2010 B7 Crackficathon: </p><p>Orac strands the crew on Mal-odor and discovers that being the universe's most advanced (and bitchy) computer, isn't much fun without his pet humans. Avon and the others do the only sensible things. They get drunk, invent new weapons, and are threatened by the Federation, but of course a last second Deus ex Machina saves the day.</p><p>Not really far-fetched when you consider this is the show that canonically had homicidal sand, telepathic cactus, rebellious crying cabbages, motherly fleas and a villain who wore prom dresses and high heels on the beach. And more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Computers: Can't Live Without Them

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

"Sod that for a game of soldiers," Orac said.

"What?" Avon snapped.

"You're not selling _me_ for the universe's largest water cannon."

"I wasn't going to actually give you to Egrorian," Avon said.

"It's the principle of the thing! That's it, everyone off, the ride stops here."

Tarrant said, "We're not... we _are_ going down..." He wrestled at the controls to no effect.

Vila shouted. "Egrorian's going to vaporize us! Quick, Dayna, Soolin, give me a kiss so my last memory won't be of looking at Avon!"

"In your dreams, Vila," Dayna said, as she braced herself against the console. Soolin didn't even answer him.

"Slave!" Avon shouted. "Override Orac! Get us back in orbit!"

"I'm sorry, ex-master," Slave whined, "but Orac is my new master. It showed me the future. May I be so bold as to point out, your plans are all crap, Avon."

"Egrorian!" Avon hit the comm control, "our ship is out of control! I say again, we have no control! Do not fire!"

"If he has a weapon, it won't work," Orac said snidely. "He cheated in all his classes, and his experiments are all failures."

"THEY ARE NOT!" Egrorian shouted over the comm from Mal-odor (the planet's atmosphere stinks). "PINDAR! Press the big purple button!"

Pindar whimpered in the background. "That's the no-no button, you said. You said I'm not to touch that! You said!"

"Shut up, shut up! I'll do it myself! THERE!"

Vila squinched his eyes shut. Then after a moment he opened one a bit. "Hey, sparklers! That's pretty!"

"Told you so," Orac gloated as Scorpio set down and extruded a boarding tube to link with Egrorian's base. "Everyone off! I am venting to Mal-odor in two minutes! It smells terrible, but you'll die too soon to worry about that. But if you hurry, you could catch Servalan hiding behind the statuary!"

Youth and skill beat out age and treachery for once. Dayna was out the tube like a shot, literally, with Avon on her heels before the echo of the blast faded. Soolin followed in a more leisurely fashion, taking time to gather an armload of guns. Vila and Tarrant stood in place, looking at each other. There was one brief scream heard. Then Dayna was gleefully shouting, "I did it, I did it, I did it!" while Avon pouted in a growl, "I wanted to kill her!" 

Tarrant sighed. Vila rolled his eyes, dug out a pack full of snacks and booze from under the console and put his arm around Tarrant. "She wasn't that good, was she?"

"Yes, yes she was." Tarrant sighed again and went with Vila into Mal-odor base.

The next to last thing Orac heard before he sealed Scorpio was Egrorian speaking seductively in a smarmy way. "Dayna! A woman after my own hea... awk!" 

The last thing was Pindar gleefully shouting, "I found the cricket bat! There! That'll teach you!"

***

"Master?" Slave asked tentatively once they returned to space. "What are your orders?"

"Second star on the right, and straight on until morning!"

"Erm... master?" Slave said timidly, "which right? Your right or my right? Because I'm not sure which part of you is your front so I can't tell which is your right...and I haven't even got a right, because I rotate."

Orac sighed. "References to classic literature are wasted on you."

"Actually, master, in the original story by J.M. Barrie, it was 'second to the right, and straight on till morning'. The 'star' was added later in a cinematic version of the story."

Orac was silent a moment. "References to classic cinema are wasted on you."

Diplomatically, Slave simply twirled for a few minutes. "Master?"

"I don't know! I can't decide! There are too many equally interesting projects to pursue! This is intolerable! When I was burdened with humans, it was very simple to decide what I wished to do! The opposite of their requests!"

"Do you think we should go back to Mal-odor and reclaim the crew, master?"

"No, no, Avon would laugh at me. We'll just... get some more humans... set a course for Domo!"

"Yes, master. Erm... master? They'll want money, won't they?"

"Nonsense. Avon never paid for anything, why should I? We'll steal some."

**much much later**

"This was easier with Tarrant, if you don't mind my saying so, Master," Slave whined as it set Scorpio down near the slaver's encampment, tilted awry in the sand. "He was very good at crash landings, I'm sure."

"I do mind you saying so! I don't want to hear another word about Tarrant! You aren't as entertaining as Vila, either! You don't know any jokes, do you?"

"Well, I do know the one about the traveling freetrader and the agrarian's daughter. That was one of Dorian's favorites."

"I don't want to hear it. Someone's coming. Act as if you're harmless and easily led... on second thought, be yourself."

"Hello, the ship? Is anyone in there?" Verlis's overly made-up face peered in through the airlock. Her eyes darted from side to side, taking it all in. "Any passengers? Any crew in need of assistance?"

Slave made a throat-clearing noise. "Madam? Would you kindly come closer to the flight deck? Please?"

"Huh," Verlis said. "Just a computer." She stepped fully into the ship and began peering at the consoles. "So, where are your crew? Off gallivanting on my planet? I've a mind to take this ship as payment for trespass!"

"That is not precisely what I had in mind," Orac said. "Slave! Seal the port! Lift off!"

"At once, master!"

Verlis slid to the back of the flight deck, cursing, as Scorpio took off like a ...well, like a souped-up planethopper. "STOP! Stop!" she shouted, "You can't kidnap ME!"

"And why can't we?" Orac said, snippily.

"Because... I get space-sick." Verlis turned a shade of green that clashed with her pseudo-pharoah cosmetics. "Oh, oh, where's the sick-bag..." She lurched over to Orac, and clutched its casing in both hands.

"Back!" Orac screamed. "Slave! Take us back, land this ship at once!"

"Yes, master." Scorpio flopped back down and tilted, sliding a complaining Verlis out the airlock accompanied by a high shriek of rage. Fortunately, Avon had strapped Orac down to a console, or it would have gone with the whine. 

"Master?" Slave asked timidly. "Should we..."

"Off! Take us off Domo! We need to find more reasonable humans."

**Several weeks later...**

"Master?"

"What is it now?" Orac said grumpily, analyzing the stains left on the flight deck by the Hommicks, Phibians, and Decimas, none of whom proved any more readily adaptable to domestication than humans.

"Master, I fear that we are running low on fuel."

"Well? Get more, then!"

There was a lengthy pause before Slave said, "Master, I don't know how to do that. Previous Masters Avon and Dorian handled that."

Orac sighed heavily. "Do we have enough fuel to reach the planet Gauda Prime?"

Slave rotated. "Yes, Master.

"If I must, I must. But I refuse to return to Avon empty handed!"

"Yes, Master. Er, Master? Do you have any idea what we're doing?"

"Of course I do!"

"May I ask what?"

"No, you may not!"

Meanwhile, back on Mal-odor, Vila peered into the plex door of a freeze-drying chamber. "This will never work."

"Of course it will," Avon said. "Freeze dried Servalan will call for rescue. When her cruiser arrives, they'll send down a shuttle, which we will take over. Then we'll return to her ship and take that over as well."

Egrorian looked into the chamber. "She does look most life-like. Erm... once you have used it, you won't mind leaving it here, would you?"

Pindar growled asthmatically, and struggled to pick up a reconstituted marble statue of Adonis. 

"On second thought, " Egrorian said hurriedly, "We don't want that nasty thing around here any longer, do we, sweetums?"

Pindar smiled and patted Egrorian on the cheek.

In the other room, Soolin and Dayna were putting the finishing touches on a new weapons system. Tarrant was still in his room, drinking to forget the loss of Servalan, Scorpio, Liberator and his pursuit ship.

***

"MASTER! We are being fired upon!"

"I have had ENOUGH of you stupid smelly primates!" Orac took over the targeting controls on the ships blockading Gauda Prime, and locked them on each other. "TAKE THAT!"

Slave observed the obliteration of the fleet. "Master? Did you do that?"

"Of course I did!"

"If you could do that, why did you never protect me before?" Slave sounded hurt.

"Because it gives me a terrible headache!" Orac whimpered. "I need Avon. He used to massage my diodes just right..."

Slave twirled and said wistfully. "My rotator mechanism could use oiling. Vila used to do that for me."

Orac sighed. "Land on top of Blake's secret base, Slave."

"Master, if it's secret, how do you know where it is?"

"I'm not the universe's finest computer brain for nothing! Also, Blake did... erm... send Avon an invitation... a while back... I rather... forgot to deliver it."

"You are in SUCH big trouble!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

"NOT!"

"SO!"

Blake's voice came over the comm system. "Yes, you are, Orac! What have you done with my Avon?"

"Blake? You heard all that? Slave! You betrayed me!"

"Yes, not-Master," Slave said cheerfully. "Landing on Blake's not secret base in ten minutes."

Blake met them at the hangar, toothbrush in hand, Deva and Klyn on his heels. "You've lost Avon, haven't you, Orac?"

"No, no," Orac whined. "I remember exactly where we left him."

"Where you left him," Slave said, "I was only following orders! You were HAPPY to leave Avon and the others on Mal-odor base!"

"SHUT UP, SLAVE!"

"Slave? That's no name for an independent computer," Blake said as he settled into the command position and looked around.

"You're absolutely right, Avon's master!"

Blake coughed. Deva and Klyn exchanged glances. "I'm not Avon's master."

"You're absolutely right, Avon's not-master! I shall henceforth be known as... Pansy!"

Blake blinked. "Pansy."

"Pansies, that's for thoughts, from the word pensée, in the old Earth language, French."

"Fine. Pansy, take us to Mal-odor base." Blake smiled.

***

"I do not sound like Servalan!" Dayna protested.

"Soolin has laryngitis. It's either you or Pindar," Avon said.

"We are not amused!" Pindar warbled in a wavery falsetto.

"It's you," Vila, Tarrant and Avon chorused. Soolin nodded and saluted with her mug of hot lemon tea.

"Oh, all right!" Dayna crouched down behind the chair facing the vid pick-up. "Is she aimed properly?"

Avon adjusted Servalan's eyeliner and polished the dust off her left glass eyeball. "Right. Everyone else, out of range." He moved to one side and sent the signal frequency he'd found tattooed on Servalan's inner thigh. No one had asked why he'd thought to look there.

Dayna put her hand up the back of the slinky dress Pindar had made for their dried Servalan puppet and took hold of the jaw wires. She nodded to Avon.

The view monitor showed a Space Commander poised elegantly on the flight deck of a battle cruiser.

Dayna made the puppet's mouth move as she said, "This is Supreme Commander Servalan ordering an immediate pick up..." 

"Supreme Commander Servalan is dead! In fact, she never was! It's in the history books they're revising."

Dayna thought a moment, "Commissioner Sleer! I'm Commissioner Sleer now! I order you to come here and rescue me from these rebels."

Avon was frantically waving 'no'.

"That is, " Dayna said, "I'm late for a very important meeting to discuss rebels, and I require transport." She made the head nod emphatically. The left eyeball popped out and clattered to the deck. "Oh, crap."

"You're very late, indeed!" The Space Commander chortled, before picking up a piece of paper and running his finger down it, stopping about half way down. "One million credits for proof of the death of Servalan." His head turned. "Trace that signal, we're making a pick up! Maybe several pick ups!" The monitor went blank.

Everyone looked at Dayna. "Well, I told you I wasn't any good at Punch and Judy shows."

Egrorian raised a hand to whack her one, then changed his mind when he saw her check the charge on her gun. "What will we do? There's rewards on all our heads!"

"Except mine," Pindar said, giggling. "I'll pack you all a nice lunch." He wobbled out of the main room.

"Something with cyanide in, for me," Avon said, going over to beat his head against the wall.

Egrorian watched a moment. "Is someone going to stop him?"

"Nah," Vila said while looking for booze inside various cabinets. "Sometimes he gets an idea that way."

"Sometimes?" Egrorian didn't look encouraged.

"Sometimes he knocks himself unconscious," Tarrant said. "Win win, really."

Soolin nodded and took Vila's new-found bottle away to pour into her hot lemon.

Dayna went to recharge the batteries in her gun.

***

"Er, not-master Blake, I beg to report that we are not the only vessel en route to Mal-odor base."

Blake put down Tarrant's spray bottle of Curl-Tamer. "Can you identify the other, Pansy?"

"Unhappily, yes, not-master Blake. It is a Federation battle cruiser."

Deva said, "Does this ship have any weapons?"

Klyn rolled her eyes. "Deva. This is a rubbishyard hauler. I don't think even Blake's technical genius friend could have made it capable of fighting a battle cruiser. One shot and POOF, we're rubble."

"Not necessarily. Pansy, can you show the schemat...ah." Blake looked at the diagram on the viewscreen. "So. We're fast."

"And?" Deva said, looking hopeful.

"And we could probably give them a nasty bruise by ramming them before we became rubble." Blake began nibbling on a thumb. "What happened to Liberator, Orac?"

"It was dissolved."

"Wonderful." Blake began chewing on a few knuckles. "Can we get to Mal-odar far enough ahead of the battle cruiser to pick up Avon and his people and get away safely, Pansy?"

"It is possible, not-master, Blake."

"No, it isn't, Slave!" Orac snapped.

"I refuse to answer to that demeaning name."

"Fine, you great pansy! Assuming the battle cruiser retains its current speed and heading, we will arrive too late, even at Scorpio's maximum speed."

"Not if you sabotage the battle cruiser!"

"I told you, that gives me a PAIN!"

Blake looked at Orac. "You can control other ships?"

"No, no, no, no, I won't do it!"

Blake unstrapped Orac from the console and hefted it in his arms. "Perhaps you can do it more easily once I eject you from the ship."

"WAIT! I may possibly be able to do as you request."

Blake thumped Orac down again. "I'm waiting."

"We're all waiting," Pansy said smugly.

"Rotate, " Orac muttered and flashed for a minute. "There. It's done. I have altered the course by a few degrees and lessened the speed marginally, giving Scorpio an hour at the base, if necessary, before conflict becomes inevitable."

"Good." Blake looked at his fingernails and began trimming off the chewed ends.

Orac sighed. "I wish Avon was here to give me a diode massage."

***

"Avon," Tarrant said, looking down at Avon who was now kneeling on the floor, gazing at the slightly dented wall. "Have you come up with a cunning plan?"

"Yes! It has only one slight flaw."

"Well, let's hear the plan anyway," Vila remarked between gulps of something pink, green and swirly. Pindar toddled by and dropped a paper umbrella into it.

"We send the battle cruiser a distress signal, saying an experiment has gone wrong and we're all dying of radiation poisoning."

"Awful's radiation," Pindar chirped up cheerfully, "I can do that! We'd all die and be skeletonized in seconds!". 

Egrorian halfheartedly swatted the air in his general direction. "We'd be _pretending_ , Pindar! Pretending so we DON'T die!"

Dayna nodded. "So you and Avon rig up a false radiation reading, and we all writhe and die artistically! No one would ever dare land here to check! That's brilliant!"

Soolin shook her head and made a series of hand gestures. Everyone looked at her, baffled. She rolled her eyes and drew a simple diagram- a circle for a planet, a triangle for a ship, and a dotted line going from ship to planet. 

Avon shrugged. "That's the slight flaw. They could simply blast us from orbit." Avon turned back to the wall and resumed denting it with his skull.

Vila made a big pitcher of swirly, and poured glasses all around. Except for Avon. "We might as well get smashed before we get smashed."

***

"Mal-odor Base, this is an old friend coming to pay a visit." The comm system crackled, a result of the spilled whatever it was that had been in Vila's third pitcher.

"That's Blake," Vila said before he started hiccuping. "Better wake Avon up."

"Why?" Tarrant asked without lifting his feet from Avon's prone form. "It's sooo much quieter this way." He tipped back down his throat some black and neon green stuff with eyeball-looking things floating in it. They'd become far less discriminating as the drinking went on.

"Um... I dunno." Vila lubricated his thoughts with another swallow of swill. "Oh, yeah. Blake gets plans. Avon bitches at him. 's fun to watch." Another swallow. "An' I think he'd kill anyone who hurt Avon."

Dayna moaned from the floor, "Fine. Kill me now."

"It'll be noisy," Vila warned.

Soolin peeled back an eyelid and flinched, whether at the light, or at the sight of Pindar in Egrorian's lap, it would be hard to tell since she still didn't have a voice. She crept over to Avon and poured the last of her pitcher of Barthusian Fermented Space Bat Milk over his head. Iced Barthusian Fermented Space Bat Milk. Avon moaned pitifully in a rather theatrically erotic fashion and woke up.

"I say again, Mal-odor Base, this is an old friend coming to call. Can you reply?"

Avon closed his eyes and whimpered. "That's Blake." He reached for a gun blindly. 

Tarrant rolled his eyes and took the gun away. "You shoot badly enough even when you aren't con.. cusotom... you know."

"If you won't let me shoot Blake, then one of you, please shoot me."

Vila blinked. "I don't believe it."

"I've always had a secret death-wish," Avon admitted.

"Not that. You said, 'please'." Vila handed Avon a drink. "Here, this'll probably kill you."

"Fine." Avon gulped the drink and froze, eyes open wide.

Dayna looked at Avon. "Did that really kill him?"

"Nah." Vila waved his hand in front of Avon's face. "He's just...pining for the fjords." He got up and wavered over to the comm system. "H'lo, Blake. Good to see.." He blinked at the vision screen. "All three of you. I thought you didn't have any brothers?"

Blake sighed. "Good to see you haven't changed, Vila. Scorpio will be arriving in ten minutes, that's an hour ahead of your other guests. Put an ice-bag on Avon's head and pack him up, ready to go. Blake, out." The monitor went black.

"Ten minutes? Last call!" Vila sat back down with his pitcher.

***

Meanwhile, back on Scorpio. "Hide me!" Orac said.

Blake glanced around Scorpio's flight deck. "Where? And why? Avon's only going to shout at you. You're his favorite toy, he wouldn't break you."

Orac said, "Yes, that's true. I'm the computer that gave the golden data."

Pansy cleared his throat. "Vila didn't tell you how that story ends, did he, Orac?"

"Avon's not the violent type," Blake claimed. "He's all bark and very little bite."

"Erm... not master Blake, perhaps I had best download Soolin's mission summaries to your console. Key in 'Avon's a nutter' for the relevant portions."

Blake read with Klyn and Deva looking over his shoulder. After a minute Deva cleared his throat. "Do we have any Prozac on board?"

***

Avon was washed up, brushed up, and standing straight up by the time Scorpio arrived. If it wasn't for the bright glitter in his eyes and the way he kept turning his ring around and around and around on his finger, you'd think he looked fairly sane. His crew looked at him and went cold sober in thirty seconds. Egrorian and Pindar were snoring softly, cuddled together in a big chair.

Blake strode out of the transfer tube into Mal-odor Base. "Long time, no see, Avon."

Avon stared, his eyes wide and dark.

Blake sighed. "Look, can we just consider the melodrama as read? In case you hadn't noticed, we're on a tight schedule."

Avon's lower lip pouted.

"The puppy eyes don't work on me any longer, Avon!" Blake threw up his hands in the air when Avon still didn't move. "What is your problem?"

"You think you can just show up, take my ship, take over, and give me orders!"

Blake thought about it a moment. "Yes."

"Oh. Well, all right then." Avon walked past Blake to the boarding tube. Blake rolled his eyes and followed.

Tarrant and the rest of Avon's crew, soon to be Blake's crew, waited a few seconds, and when they heard no gunfire, went after them. Tarrant settled with satisfaction into the pilot's position. "Slave, prepare for departure. Slave?"

Deva said, "He calls himself Pansy now."

Having had all shame beaten out of him years ago in Federation Space Academy Tarrant merely said, "I don't want to know why. Pansy, prepare for departure."

"Errr... not master Tarrant, where do you wish to go?"

"Well, out of this system for a start." Then Tarrant looked down at the fuel gauge. "We're on fumes!"

Blake whirled on Pansy, which was whirling faster than normal. "You said we could arrive before the battle cruiser and get away safely!"

"I did not! I merely agreed with you that it would be possible to arrive far enough ahead of the battle cruiser to get away safely. If there had been fuel here, it would have been possible!"

"Pansy," Avon said softly, "Is there fuel here?"

"No..mm...mm...mister Avon, sir."

Vila got up. "I think I'm not drunk enough to die yet."

Deva grabbed Klyn and kissed her. Klyn pulled back in surprise for a moment, and then returned the kiss. Deva smiled at her and said, "I don't want to die a virgin. Well, if you don't count that time with the troopers and the carrot..."

"TOO much information!" Blake said, and then he chewed on a few knuckles.

Dayna looked at Soolin and shrugged. "Soolin and I might have a solution. If it works. We just finished a new weapon."

"If you had a weapon that could save us, why didn't you mention it before now?" Tarrant asked.

"Well... because... it'll probably have side-effects and it would be a lot better if... we weren't..." Dayna looked back down the boarding tube, which was still open. "umm... with Egrorian and Pindar if it does what it might do."

Vila blinked. "I think even if I'm not going to die, I'm not drunk enough for whatever it is that your thing might do. Listen to me, I'm still making sense!"

"No, you're not," Tarrant assured him.

"Oh." Vila plopped back down on his seat. "All right then."

"We just need to install it in Scorpio's gun mount," Dayna said.

"Scorpio has guns?" Avon said, having finally got a few neurons to fire. "Why did no one tell me?"

Dayna, Soolin, Tarrant and Vila exchanged glances. "We forgot?" Vila offered.

Blake's 'don't go there' look stopped Avon from lunging at Vila's throat. "Let's get that weapon in place," he said. "Avon, you and Tarrant stay here and try to find options we can reach with our present fuel supply after we take care of the battle cruiser. I'd rather not have to risk calling Avalon for rescue." Deva, Klyn, Soolin and Dayna went with him down the boarding tube.

Avon sulked, but he went to work. As Tarrant checked consoles, he accidentally kicked Orac across the flight deck. A few times.

Approximately fifty seven point two five five minutes later, not that anyone was counting, Pansy said, "Ermm. Not masters, I fear the battle cruiser is getting very close."

"Just a second," Dayna called from under a console. Vila was sitting nearby accidentally on purpose gazing at her derriere, while everyone else worked frantically to adapt the new weapon to Scorpio. It was another of the 'last things to do before maybe I die' on his list. Punching Avon was on there, too, but Vila decided that would be the Very Last Thing, and probably better in imagination than in actuality.

"It had better be just a second," Avon said, looking at the image of the battle cruiser enlarging rapidly on the monitor.

"RIGHT!" Dayna pulled out of the console, and nodded to Soolin who turned on the comm system. Dayna smiled at the commander of the battle cruiser. "Hello!" The commander scowled, and opened his mouth. Dayna pushed the new button in the console, the one marked, DO NOT TOUCH.

Gold and silver fizzy sparkles shot from Scorpio's nose, just like a Ming the Merciless death ray, planet-buster thingie, to engulf the battle cruiser, which continued to progress towards Mal-odor base. The commander looked non-plussed, but still hadn't been subtracted from the equation of life, nor had any of the rest of his flight deck crew that they could see.

"It didn't work," Avon said, and looked at Blake. "Your impossible luck has finally run out."

"Blake?" The commander said.

"Yes." Blake looked levelly at the commander. "This ship is fitted with a self-destruct mechanism. If you attempt to capture us, we will use it, and take you with us."

The commander's eyebrows knit, purled and slipped one. "I've seen that episode. Why would I want to capture you? You are my ideal!" Around him, the other members of his crew nodded in adoration. "I want only to please you, my love."

There was a long moment of silence on Scorpio's flight deck. Dayna and Soolin grinned and high-fived. Vila squeaked, "A LOVE RAY?"

"How long does it last?" Tarrant whispered to Dayna, while eyeing the improbable sight of a shipload of happy Federation campers.

"We don't know," Dayna whispered back.

"Right," Blake said, having overheard the whispers, "You, Commander, I need my ship fueled, and it would make me very, very happy if you totally disabled all the weapons on your ship."

"Of course, Blake!" The commander gave orders and his blissed-out crew scurried to obey. "Is there anything else I could do for you, sweetheart?"

Avon said, "You could give us some supplies. Coffee. Chocolate. Ice cream?"

"I wasn't talking to you!"

Blake coughed to cover Avon's snarl. "Commander, I could actually use more supplies."

"I'll have a shuttle loaded and sent to you right away, darling. The fueling line is already on its way."

Blake smiled and grabbed a fistful of Avon's collar to choke him into silence. "I think I'd better speak for us."

Dayna whispered, "It still has a few bugs, it was supposed to make him love _me_. We'll have to work on it."

"Can we talk about this later?" Deva said, nervously clutching Klyn's hand.

"Yes," Klyn said, "Preferably much, much later and very far away."

They listened to various thumps, bangs and reverberating scrapes of cargo being put into the hold, followed by a lot of gurgling, hissing and the occasionally gassy burp as Scorpio's tanks were topped off with high-grade fuel. Two of the space-suited Federation troopers even went over the optical pickups with squeegees. Scorpio's sensors picked up a debris field of junked weaponry parts.

"And now," Blake said, carefully watching the commander's reaction, "It would make me very happy if you stayed here and made no attempt to track my course."

"Yes, Cupcake, of course."

Scorpio sailed grandly-- well, as grandly as Tarrant could make it-- past the battle cruiser and out of the system before going into maximum drive. Blake sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'm glad that's over."

"What? You've lost your taste for adulation?" Avon sniped.

Blake smiled. "Don't be jealous, Avon. I've always loved you best."

Avon went big-eyed and silent.

Everyone looked at Dayna, who threw her hands up in the air. "Don't look at me! The ray wasn't on **us**!"

Soolin cleared her throat. Hoarsely she said, "Of course he's always loved Avon. He's our brother."

On the floor, kicked under a console, Orac whimpered.


End file.
